The basic story of Mobile Police Patlabor is a deceptivly simple one. In the late 20th century, construction companies began developing labors - large robotic suits - to make work easier. The idea became very popular, especially amoung the millitary. Soon, as the populairty of labors increased, a new problem arose... Labor Crimes. In order to fight against this new and very dangerous threat, the police instated a new unit, known as the Special Vehicles Two, or SV2 for short.
The SV2 is divided up into two units. Unit One is the elite group, headed by Captain Nagumo Shinobu. The other unit, the unit this story follows, is known as Unit Two, or better known as "The big waste of tax payers money that leaves destruction and chaos in its wake." The characters in this section, Noa Izumi, Asuma Shinohara, Isao Ohta, Mikiyasu Shinshi, Hiromi Yamazaki, and Takeo Kumagami, are very... odd, for the most part. As Captain Goto so nicely puts it...
Aren't we all? Well, it seems as though latter was the more correct. But everyone has to start somewhere!
Anyway, being the goofy group that they are and being in the sophisticated machines they were given (light years ahead of Unit One's...), they are often the target for the bizzare (escaped genetic monsters), to the mundane, (Labor domestic disputes?), to the just plain odd (Snow castles anyone?). But perhaps the most important enemies they encouter are those from rival companies trying to test their new Labors against the Shinohara Heavy Industries best and most advanced, the AV-98 Ingram.
Meanwhile, apart from all this madness, is the core of the story. In the late twentieth century, global warming and a general decline in the state of the enviroment led to the melting of the polar ice caps. Of course, this was a big problem for costal cities like Tokyo. To save the city, a great barrier dam was constructed, holding back the encroaching Tokyo Bay. At this time, Labors were invented to aid in the construction. Now that they had labors, a new idea developed. Why not simply fillin the rest of the bay and create new land? That brings us to where we are now. Enviromentalists, such as "Earth Defense Army" and "Beach House," are trying to fight this endevor, named The Babylon Project. In fact, the SV2 base is located waaaay the heck out there on some of the new reclaimed land on the far reaches of Tokyo (so far away, in fact, that only one Ramen restaurant will deliver to them, causing another slew of problems, but that's another story).
There's more to the story, of course, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone. I'm a big fan of the manga (being released by VIZ!!), which is different from the Television series, which is different from one of the OVAs, which is different from the movies. The second movie is a bizzare thing that I really hate. The reason the second movie is so different is that 1) It wasn't written at all by Masami Yuuki, and 2) It was too dark and didn't make any sense with the rest of the manga/tv series/OVAs. I think you should see it, just so you know what it's about, but most people don't consider it cannon. In the TV series, there is a character called Kanuka Clancy, a cop from New York who joins our goofy labor force for a while, kind of like an internship. I'm not to fond of her either, but hey...
That's about all I have to say about that! If you want more, I suggest you support the people releasing it and go buy the manga or the videos! Support Anime Sales In The USA!!
